


Grab Some Water

by Awesome_Sauce432



Series: Post Episode Fun Times [6]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hair Braiding, Neither Of These Girls Can Do It, Post-Episode 77, Talking About Emotions Is Hard Okay, Yasha Is Mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 02:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20538953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Sauce432/pseuds/Awesome_Sauce432
Summary: In the wake of Jester's most recent scry on Yasha, no one is really 'okay'. But some are more okay than others, and Jester's pretty sure Beau isn't okay. When the monk makes an excuse to leave the room, she decides to follow, not quite sure what she has to offer, but wanting to try. Of course, she's not exactly emotionally uncompromised herself.





	Grab Some Water

No one was in the mood to argue over who got to sleep on the bed in their room at the Lavish Chateau. After hearing about what Yasha was doing, all of them realising one by one where it was happening, _who _was being massacred, no one was really in the mood to be talking much at all.

Caduceus was the first to even move, the first to break the tense silence that had fallen over them once Jester had finished telling them what had she’d seen. He murmured something about getting some sleep — Jester was hardly paying attention, too busy thinking about the tears that had been streaking down Yasha’s face, cutting tracks through the blood — before nudging Caleb and Nott towards the bed, talking about how teleporting could be exhausting.

The two didn’t resist much, both casting looks at the rest of them (especially her and Beau) and opening their mouths or tightening their jaws like they wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words. Caleb ended up on the bed with Nott curled close beside him, Caduceus pulling out his bedroll and silently setting it up.

Jester’s hands were laced together, her legs filled with lead that bolted her firmly to the floor. Fjord took a hesitant step towards her, his face tight, and for a moment Jester was worried he was going to talk about how this was just more evidence that Yasha couldn’t be trusted, that she’d _betrayed _them.

It wasn’t her. It couldn’t have really been her. She’d been crying.

Instead, he gave her a long look that seemed halfway between reassuring and uncertain, before he stopped in front of Beau, who had gone stiff five seconds into Jester’s story and hadn’t moved a muscle since. Her arms were folded and her gaze was fixed firmly downward, an expression so tense and solemn she almost looked like a statue.

She didn’t look up when Fjord put a steady arm on her shoulder, nor when he whispered something so soft Jester couldn’t hear. She saw her exhale painfully slowly, knuckles white and her nails digging into her upper arm so hard they’d probably draw blood if they were biting into bare skin.

She nodded tersely, almost imperceptibly, and Jester could see Fjord’s face draw even tighter, almost helpless. He didn’t know what to say here. None of them knew what to say.

It was the Cobalt Soul. Beau had made no secret of how she disliked almost all of them but Dairon, but it was still the Cobalt Soul. It was Zadash.

But at the same time, it was Yasha.

Fjord stepped away, joining the others around the bed, casting a look over his shoulder as he went. Beau stayed standing stock-still where she was for a few moments before inhaling sharply, looking up. Jester could see her nails dig harder into her arms as she did.

“I’m gonna just, uh-grab some water.” She spoke clearly, her voice not wavering, but it was sharp and defensive. Jester could practically watch her pushing things down in front of her eyes, the carefully built fortress of walls and masks sliding up before she spun on her heel — not so quickly that it seemed too odd, but just quick enough to be unnatural — and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Staring at the closed door, Jester could feel the others exchanging looks behind her, each coming to their own conclusion that following wouldn’t be a good idea. If Beau came back in a few minutes then she would, if she came back in a few hours with a bloody nose and a black eye, then…

Jester’s stomach flipped, her heart pounding in her chest as the details of the scry slowly filtered away from her memory. The weight in her legs seemed to lift, and before she knew it she’d opened the door and was striding down the hallway herself. Her vision was blurry, tears gathering in her eyes but never quite falling.

But she knew these halls like the back of her hand, knew all the right places to step to make sure the floor didn’t creak, so it didn’t matter if she had to blink tears out of her eyes almost every second, trying to keep her breathing steady and wiping her eyes with her hand.

Why had they tried to scry on her? In some vain hope that Yasha had broken free? To make sure she was still alive? Maybe they just missed her.

Jester thought back to a conversation long ago, before they’d even stepped foot in Xhorhas when it had been pointed out to Caduceus that he could always ask the Wildmother what had happened to his family. But he never did.

Sometimes the uncertainty is better.

Sometimes the answer is worse than the question.

It felt like her entire body was shaken up when she found herself on the bottom floor, turning a corner to see Blude standing there with a frown on his face, looking like he’d been about to do something.

“Blude?” Jester wasn’t sure if her voice was shaking, too busy trying to keep the emotions swirling inside her from spilling over the brim. “Did you see my friend Beau come by here for some water?”

“I saw one of your friends.” Blude always sounded a little gruff, his frown softening. “She didn’t seem to be heading for the water, though.”

He pointed over towards the bar, which stretched around another corner out of view. “Oh. Okay, I’ll go get her.”

“Is everything alright?”

Jester plastered on a small smile, already turning away so Blude couldn’t see her face clearly. “Yeah, it’s all okay. Beau’s just not very good at going to sleep on time. I’ll make sure she doesn’t drink too much booze.”

She stepped away before Blude could say anything else, hugging her arms around her as she stepped up behind the bar, turning the corner.

There was Beau, sitting cross-legged on the ground with her back up against the wall, an unopened bottle of something expensive that Jester could remember sneaking a sip of once when she was very little. It had tasted disgusting.

Beau’s shoulders were slumped and she was staring at the bottle. For a few moments she didn’t seem to notice Jester was there, until she suddenly exhaled, closing her eyes and straightening up a little.

“Hey, Jes.” Her voice was just as hard and measured as it had been before, and for a moment Jester was struck with indecision. Biting her lip, she slowly lowered herself down next to Beau, not touching but leaving barely an inch of space between them.

Jester didn’t know what to say. Any platitudes she might’ve been able to conjure felt hollow. Jester didn’t even _know _any of the people in the Archives at Zadash. Beau may have mentioned a few by name but she’d long forgotten them. Was there anything she could say?

The silence hung between them, growing heavier with every passing second. Looking at her out of the corner of her eye, Jester could see Beau had opened her eyes again, staring intently at the bottle in her hands but not appearing to be reading any label nor making a move to open it.

“This… isn’t where you get water, you know.” Jester finally said. Beau didn’t chuckle at the lame joke, didn’t even smirk. “Are… are you okay?”

The silence returned, almost crushing now. Jester tilted her head towards Beau, her knees pulled up to her chest.

“I… I never liked anyone in that place.” It wasn’t an answer to the question Jester had asked, and they both knew it. “They didn’t deserve to die.”

That wasn’t an answer either, but Jester let it sit as if it was one, resting her chin on top of her knees. “Yeah.”

“Obann might attack somewhere else next. Maybe he and the Cerberus Assembly are working together.” Beau’s voice was monotonous yet tinged with something, something almost desperate, too subtle for Jester to really pin down. “Easy way for the Assembly to get rid of their enemies without getting their hands dirty.”

“Maybe.” Jester felt lost, a shiver tracing up her spine even though she wasn’t cold. Beau’s eyes twitched towards her. Her body relaxed a little, but even that seemed forced, another deflection to pretend she was unaffected by all of this.

“Are _you_ okay? It… it must have been harder to see it all yourself.”

Another distraction, a distant part of Jester thought. The rest of her just shrugged, perhaps no more willing to address her emotions than Beau was to address hers. Quite a pair they made.

But it was different for Jester. Jester wasn’t the one whose organisation had just been slaughtered. “I’ve seen lots of fights, Beau.” She smiled wanly. She’d seen lots of fights. She hadn’t seen many massacres. “I’m okay.” No, she wasn’t.

Beau was looking at her, her gaze slightly off-centre in the darkness. Finally breathing out heavily, she leaned her head back against the wall, absentmindedly putting the still-closed bottle of alcohol back on the shelf she’d gotten it from. “Fuck. I don’t think I can sleep.”

“Time gets all weird when it’s night all the time.” Jester forced a chuckle as if the only reason any of them might have trouble sleeping was getting used to not being in Rosohna or underground somewhere. How funny.

Still, it was an excuse both of them were happy to take. “Yeah. It’ll be nice to see the sun again.” Beau had closed her eyes again, her relaxation seeming a little more genuine.

“Still, I think the others might want us to come back to the room. Caleb can be so paranoid, you know?” More excuses. Why was it so much easier to dance around things?

But Beau nodded, didn’t object when Jester stood up and offered to hand to help her up to her feet. Jester waved at Blude as they passed, and Beau made a vague grunt of acknowledgement that was returned in kind.

The room was quiet when they returned, the others either already asleep or pretending for their benefit. With Nott and Caleb sprawled out on the bed together — in the hut, they were usually pretty small but on a proper bed they _stretched _— they didn’t discuss before pulling out their bedrolls and setting them up side by side, a little away from where Fjord was lightly snoring.

Jester had hoped the familiar and methodical setup might ease some of the nervous energy that still fluttered in her stomach or the tension that still lined Beau’s shoulders. When it didn’t, she was left sitting on top of her blanket with hands shaking, next to her friend who still wouldn’t quite make eye contact.

Without really thinking of it, Jester found herself shuffling around behind Beau, fingers soon brushing through her hair in a soft repetitive motion. For the first few minutes of Jester carefully working through the knots in Beau’s hair the monk was entirely stiff once again, but slowly her shoulders deflated, hands resting in her lap and her head tilted downwards.

Beau’s hair was so much longer now than it had been when they’d first met. Her undercut had been carefully maintained but the part that she let grow long now reached down to her elbows when completely loose, which it rarely was.

Separating the hair into chunks, Jester began to fold it into multiple small braids, running from her hairline all the way down. With each completed braid it was like everything was starting to slow down again, the memories of the scry and everything it meant and everything they might have to do no longer seeing so terrible. With each completed braid she hoped that Beau was able to derive some comfort from it too. Usually, she didn’t mind if Jester played with her hair.

When she’d braided all of Beau’s she began to unbraid it again, all the way until there was just one braid left on the edge between her hair and the fuzzy shaved part of her head. Jester prepared to undo that one as well, but Beau turned her head, shuffling her body around so that she was halfway facing Jester.

“You can leave one if you want. One of the braids.”

“Oh.” Jester blinked for a moment, before snapping back to reality and nodding, picking up the hair ribbon and quickly tying it around the one remaining braid. “There. Beautiful.”

They were both whispering, still hovering close by but not quite touching, a tiny artificial distance between them. Jester wasn’t sure which one of them had put it there. A part of her wanted to bridge it, another didn’t know how. But she could try.

Hesitantly, Jester let her fingers run down the remaining braid in Beau’s hair, brushing past her ear and cheek when she did. Beau still wasn’t quite looking at her, her posture heavy with things she wasn’t admitting were there, but a ghost of a smile crossed her face.

“Thanks, Jes. I’ll… see you in the morning.”

“Yeah. Sleep well.”

It seemed a lame wish, unlikely even considering everything that was probably running through Beau’s mind. But they both laid down regardless, perhaps shuffled a little closer so that their backs were pressed together, and Jester closed her eyes and listened to Beau’s breathing, feeling her body slowly even out, slowly relax, slowly find peace. After that, she found it a lot easier to do the same herself.

**Author's Note:**

> rip the cobalt soul lol 
> 
> anyway this was partly inspired by me realising beau has a BRAID in her hair now you cant tell me jester didn't put it there  
and the rest of it was inspired by me feeling ANGSTY AS HELL 
> 
> cant wait for beau to repress those emotions ay 
> 
> anyway talk about your feelings kids they're important
> 
> also i used the Beauregard Lionett tag for the first time hmmmm


End file.
